Post by a327ex in What is this "Rank" doing in my game's analytics page and how can I make it go away

Viewing post in What is this "Rank" doing in my game's analytics page and how can I make it go away

I have to say I disagree with everyone in this thread. It's a doggy dog world and competition is the way these things work. Steam also has a rank for your games and it's a much more brutal situation there since it seems to mostly depend on how well your game does on the first few days it's on their platform, as this video states https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PNCgFbc53iU.

Everyone who wants to make their projects the best benefits from knowing how well it's doing compared to everyone else. If you don't want to compete then that's fine, but don't remove information that would be useful to people like me who do want to compete and who do want to make their projects the best they can be.

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MOKKA6 years ago(+1)

Oh boy, I'm not going to engage with your larger point because my time on this earth is limited, but please point me towards the part where I said that analytics should be removed for everyone?

I think I said "give people a way to opt out of this stuff", which means that there will also be an option to keep things the way they are.

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a327ex6 years ago(+4)

leafo has said he will not add an option for this because he doesn't want to add too many UI options for tons of stuff (which is a valid point, since many UI options means more testing time whenever you want to add/change things in the future). So it really is the case that it's either keep it or remove it. I could argue with everyone here endlessly about how most of your arguments on this are wrong, but since my time on earth is also limited I'll say this: in my view, if a number bothers you guys so much maybe you should just grow a thicker skin.

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MOKKA6 years ago(+1)

And still, we haven't really talked about removing them? Just changing them? You do know that you can still provide the same type of information, just in a different context. That doesn't make the information go away and might even make it more useful! It's like a strange magic trick!

Also even though leafo said that he won't give an option, I'm still going to propose it, because I think it would be a good thing to have and it would also be in the spirit of the platform, which is about giving devs control over how they present and treat their work.

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a327ex6 years ago(+2)

The proposed change seems to be to show you a delta instead of your actual rank. This isn't a better solution. It's way less information to the point of being useless. It's no use to me to know that I went up 50 positions if I don't know whether I started out at position 100 or position 1000.

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Ludonaut6 years ago

I'm glad not everyone shares your particular worldview. Not everything has to be a competition you know. Global rankings especially (which nobody benefits from except maybe the top percentage of developers here) tend to drive amateurs and hobbyists away in my experience, marginalizing creators even further, which would be a huge loss to itch.io from where I'm standing.

"Steam does it" is generally a good reason not to.

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Prime Function: Holt6 years ago(+3)

"(which nobody benefits from except maybe the top percentage of developers here) "

I'm having trouble understanding your perspective on that. Anyone who is trying to sell a product, whether it be an asset, a game, a tool, whatever, are competing with other sellers for a potential customer's time and attention. They obviously benefit from any information that tells them how their marketing methodology is performing.

"Global rankings especially tend to drive amateurs and hobbyists away in my experience, marginalizing creators even further"

Honestly, that seems like wild, unsubstantiated speculation presented as fact. It probably applies to some amateurs and hobbyists, but certainly not everyone.

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Sergio Cornaga6 years ago (1 edit) (+1)

Given that some people want to see this number and others do not, I still think something like an option to turn it on would be a good approach if it can't be altered in a way that pleases both parties. Also, unrelated to your point, but I thought you might like to know that "doggy dog world" is a popular eggcorn for the phrase "dog-eat-dog world".

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RobF6 years ago(+3)

Obviously I don't have access to the wealth of data Leaf does but I still feel fairly comfortable with saying that the majority of Itch usage will not be people in competition with each other. You only have to look at the excess of jam projects and experiments that reside here.

It's very important that Itch stays a place that welcomes these sort of projects as they're fundamental to our progress in games - freeware and related always have been. It's also important that not everything be, as you call it, doggy dog because *not everything is*

No-one in this thread is averse to the availability of analytics but I think putting the onus on Itch to consider its role in the community and how much "business-ifying" everything absolutely will effect the role it plays (because it always, always does) is vital. Part of the reason Itch thrives in opposition or accompaniment to Valve's sell all the things, everyone fight now is because it is, for many people, in opposition.

I understand that in order to survive and grow, Itch will have a balancing act of pleasing two fundamentally opposed camps - especially if it wants to invite more projects from professional game makers. Just listening to those on the other side of the fence from that is absolutely vital too - they don't want or need to be placed in competition, if they did then Steam already exists.

Personally, I would go with an opt in but I understand that the more friction, the more difficulty in getting some uptake. It's not an easy problem to solve but it is vital that some sort of compromise scenario is reached because what Itch does now is too important to throw away.

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a327ex6 years ago(+3)

I just fundamentally disagree with your view. This site will succeed if it makes money. It will make money from successful projects selling, not from freeware games and jams. Catering to people who are not interested in making their projects good and profitable is a mistake.

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MOKKA6 years ago (1 edit) (+2)

You do know that itchio started as a platform to easily distribute freeware and gamejam games and unlike many other digital stores for indiegames that popped up and went under over the years, they are still around?

Sure, I'm not the itchio business person, but from what I can tell, having a good portion of your userbase being composed of smaller amateur devs doesn't really seem to hurt them...

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RobF6 years ago (3 edits) (+2)

Well, I mean you can disagree with my worldview as much as you like! I've been doing this for nearly twenty years now and it's largely been my experience that big Indies don't compete with each other (sharing info to lift each other up is the norm where I lurk), more co-exist. I've sold hundreds of thousands of games in all these years and never once needed to push anyone out to do so. I can't possibly see what advantage doing so would net me over what I already can do, y'know?

So sure, you can disagree but a) it's not how things tend to work in games and b) it's a moot point because Itch is and will continue to be somewhere that welcomes all (within the bounds of its code of conduct) -- we're just trying to ascertain the best route to ensuring both free and paid can thrive.

*Shrugs*

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a327ex6 years ago (3 edits) (+2)

I'm also not interested in "pushing people out", in fact, for the first game I made now I wrote an entire tutorial on how to program that game from scratch, which you can see here https://github.com/SSYGEN/blog/issues/30. This is more work than most people do to help their fellow indie developers. What I find wrong and misguided is that I should have less information available to me because some people can't deal with seeing a number attached to their projects.

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RobF6 years ago

No-one wants that. People want a way to *not see* that information.

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